


Cold Comfort

by LadySilver



Series: Strength to Go On [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Guns, H/C bingo, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking, Verb Tense Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/pseuds/LadySilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Chris Argent was young and learning how to be a Hunter, he had a friend...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Comfort

Chris took aim at his target, the stock of the gun comfortable and secure in his grip. Letting his breath out slowly, he squeezed back on the trigger. With an explosion of glass, the beer bottle at the other end of the clearing shattered, and David, his best friend, let out an appreciative whoop, pumping his arm in the air.

“Sweet shot, man,” David complimented, a soft whistle offering extra proof of his appreciation. “It never stood a chance.”

Chris nodded once, lowering the weapon. He eyed the stump of brown glass that remained and nodded again. A few weeks ago, he never would have been able to make that shot. He offered a grunt of acknowledgement and turned his attention to the next target: another empty beer bottle stationed a few feet farther away. This one would be trickier, but he was determined to clear all the targets today. Getting time to just be a teen and hang out with his friends was often a tall order, but he could sometimes get his mother to relent if he promised to combine the time with training, which was why he was here now. Reporting back to her that he’d successfully hit all the targets today might just brighten her mood enough for her to give permission for an actual date. As much as he enjoyed spending time with David, he had hopes for a different kind of leisure over the upcoming weekend.

The boys had spent some time working on tracking, then set up the target range in a small clearing deep enough in the trees to keep people from hearing the gunshots. The day had been hot with only a rare breeze to rustle through the leaves and offer respite from the temperature. Chris could feel the dampness from his sweat around the neck and armpits of his shirt, and knew David was no better off. He licked his lips, noting their dryness, and decided to reward himself with some water after he took out the next target. As if anticipating him, David retrieved a slim metal flask from a pocket in his cargo shorts. “Have some juice for good luck,” he said, holding it out.

Chris let the barrel drop, always careful never to point it at anything he wasn’t ready to shoot, and rounded on his friend. “Put that away! Alcohol _or_ guns. One or the other,” he snapped. “You know the rules.”

David met his glare, his brown eyes meeting Chris’s blue, and squared his shoulders. Though slightly taller than Chris, David was all sinew and bone, a guy who looked like his joints weren’t assembled correctly. Once in motion, he was pure grace. Until then, he looked like he would fall apart if bumped into. He was no threat to Chris’s more compact strength. “It’s always about the rules with you, isn’t it?” he mocked. “Stop being such a wet blanket.” Eyes still locked, he took a defiant sip from the flask.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Chris demanded. It was all he could do not to rip the flask from his friend’s hand and grind it into the dirt. That, or punch his friend for being a deliberate dick.

“Just trying to lighten up, _dude_.” David took another draw, then barred his teeth, as if daring Chris to follow through on his impulses.

Chris watched the action, then with deliberate motions began unloading his gun. Setting the pieces on the ground—still without breaking eye contact—he stood up with a single bullet pinched between his fingers. “This,” he said, his voice low and serious, “is not a joke. What we _do_ is not a joke. How are we supposed to protect others if we won’t follow that rules that protect us?”

“Is that Chris Argent talking? Or Gerard Argent?” David shot back. He took a step closer to Chris, arms tensing as if preparing to take a swing.

Chris didn’t move; he’d faced down too many werewolves to be cowed by such a mundane threat. “Someone has to keep you from getting yourself killed,” he answered, thinking about how carelessly David threw himself into dangerous situations. David had raised eyebrows in Hunter circles for being a little _too_ eager to chase down werewolves, a little _too_ reckless at throwing himself at monsters.

“Though,” Chris continued, making no effort to disguise how much he disliked the comparison David had made, “if you ever say I’m like my father again, the weres won’t get a chance to get their claws in you.” He turned away and began cleaning up the debris from their afternoon shooting practice. If David’s expression darkened for an instant, Chris figured it was because the argument was only starting. He’d never had to turn on his friend before, and something about how David had courted it suggested that their differences—whatever they were—were going to take more than a couple of thrown punches to resolve.

He spent the hike back trying to work out what had set David off; it wasn’t like him to be so cavalier about gun safety, and then to taunt Chris the way he had—everyone knew that Chris and his father didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye. Since David seemed to be brooding under a storm cloud of his own making, Chris had plenty of time to think. They’d spent more time in the woods than planned, and the sun was a spread of pink light across the horizon by the time they reached the parking lot. Only David’s car remained, the boys having driven out to the forest preserve together. The car had been a birthday present for David, and it wasn’t much, but it ran and that was all that mattered to either of the boys.

David came to a stop at the edge of the lot and set down the bag of gear he’d been carrying. “Chris?” He dug his hand into a different pocket and came up with his keys which he wrapped his fingers around, his grip tight as if the keys were oiled and slippery.

Chris had continued to the car and was now standing impatiently by the trunk, waiting to deposit his own gear. The bag had grown nearly as heavy as the silence on the hike, and he couldn’t wait to get rid of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to keep his tone neutral. “It’s getting late. Our parents are expecting us for dinner.”

“You’ve got my back, right? You won’t let any hard feelings stop you from doing the right thing?”

The desperation in David’s voice kept Chris from responding that those were two very different questions, and right now he wasn’t sure if they warranted the same answer. So, he lied, responding as if the answer was and would always be obvious: “Yeah.”

David deflated, a tension in his body that Chris hadn’t realized was there uncoiling. “Thank you,” he murmured, the words so soft that a raucous chirping of birds nearly swallowed them, and Chris didn’t want to ask for a repeat in case he heard wrong. A teasing glint lit David’s eye then, the kind of glint that too often resulted in reprimands. He jangled the keys once, then tossed them underhanded to Chris. “Good. You drive.” There was still enough light left in the rapidly darkening evening for Chris to track the toss and make the catch, and he was so pleased with himself for not missing what would otherwise be an easy catch that he didn’t stop to wonder what trouble David was courting now.

+++

Later that night, after putting the bullet in David’s head, it all starts to make sense. Chris hunkers on the side of the road, his stomach having been emptied into the weeds, and stares at the body of his best friend. David’s eyes are closed and his mouth slightly open. All traces of the burning yellow and elongated canines are gone.

The hole in David’s forehead is deceptively small; the damage looks minimal compared to the shattered bottles—and the kick of the gun in his hand hadn’t been anywhere near as satisfying. The two wounds in the chest are little more than darkened splotches on a dark shirt. David’s hand is left reaching forward, his palm curled up as if to accept a small gift. Chris understands that as the second part of the thank you that David whispered earlier.

Chris knows he did the right thing. David had all but made him promise to be the one to shoot him after the moon started to rise, after the change started to take hold. He would have done it anyway, he realizes: Because that’s what he’d trained his entire life to do; because he couldn’t let his best friend succumb to the beast that had stolen his body; because he couldn’t sacrifice him to Gerard’s condemnation or his sword; because the best death was one done quickly and out of mercy. David had had entrusted Chris in the ultimate sign of friendship.

It’s a cold comfort, but as Chris waits under the stars, gun in hand, to make sure the body doesn’t move again, he realizes that it’s the best he’s going to get. And his father will be so proud.

**Author's Note:**

> For h/c bingo prompt: bullet wounds


End file.
